There is a prompt for today, but I'm going to ignore it in favor of being furious.

Nora attends a Montessori preschool. She started there in December 2009, so she's been there for almost two years. Until this past summer, I liked it a lot. Her teachers were great, she was making friends, and it seemed like she was learning. All good.

She attends the summer program so that I can work (she doesn't nap and I do my work during Isaac's naps). This past summer, she moved into the big kids' room with a teacher that I shall refer to here by the pseudonym of Ms. Obnoxious, or "Ms. O" for short.

I can't stand Ms. O, and I'm pretty sure that the feeling is mutual. She's rude and condescending to parents and turns every little request into a Big Freaking Situation. I spent most of the summer battling to get her to put sunscreen on my child, for example - which should not have been a Thing, but for her it was all "you should put it on at home" (well, I do, but it's 4 PM when I pick her up and 90 degrees and they've been outside sweating, and it doesn't last that long, so it needs to be reapplied) and "I'm not going to get all up under her clothes to put on sunscreen" (which I was not asking her to do, obviously - I just wanted it on the exposed skin)... and so on and so forth. It took two phone calls and two in-person complaints to the director before Ms. O started applying sunscreen regularly - at the end of August, after Nora had already been burned twice. Needless to say, I was not a happy camper.

Nora was then assigned to Ms. O's class for the regular school year, and things have just gone downhill since then. I have no idea what they're learning in school because (1) she never gives us the calendar for the month until the month is halfway over and (2) she doesn't follow what's on the calendar anyway. When I ask Nora what she did in school on any given day, she has lots of stories about playing and coloring, but none about learning anything. And although it's allegedly a Montessori school, they often go several days or even weeks at a time without doing any Montessori-inspired activities.

While all of this not-learning has been not-happening, things with Ms. O have continued to deteriorate. She has refused to allow Nora to eat certain foods that I've packed into her lunch bag (specifically, small candies in the week after Halloween), even though nothing I sent was against school policy. She disciplines the kids in ways that I find highly inappropriate (for example, public shaming of the children with "sad face" stickers when they're done something "bad"). And so on and so forth, yadda yadda yadda, she sucks.

I finally reached the end of my rope last week and called the director to set up a meeting to discuss my concerns. I wrote the meeting time in my planner while we were on the phone and confirmed it a second time before we hung up. P came home from work early to watch the kids so that I could go get these issues resolved. And then I got there... and he wasn't there. "I had you on the calendar for Tuesday," he said. I argued with him, I offered to drive to wherever he was so that we could meet today, I was strong but firm... and then I lost my shit. I ended up yelling at him on the phone and then hanging up on him.

Not my proudest moment, not by a long shot. I'm now "that parent." But I'm so sick of this school that I'm seriously considering yanking her out of it and homeschooling her for the rest of the year. And the director blowing off our meeting just felt like the very last straw in a long line of things that all could have been the last straw. If Nora didn't love her friends so much, I think we would have pulled her out last summer.

Argh. I know that I'm going to have to eat crow tomorrow and apologize for my hissy fit, and of course I'll do that. But seriously, if these issues don't get resolved... I'm going to be pissed. I feel like we're spending several hundred dollars a month for my kid to color pictures and be shamed by her bitchy teacher, and that's just not okay with me anymore.

Grr.

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Welcome!

Hello there! My name is Lisa. I'm a 31-year-old wife, mom, and lawyer. My husband, P, and I have been married since 2005. Our kids are Nora (age 4.75) and Isaac (age 1.75). I work part-time in my solo law practice and spend the rest of my time home with our children. This blog covers my everyday life, parenthood, and whatever else happens to be on my mind.